Chapter XI. Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them

by Booker T. Washington

　　A little later in the history of the school we had a visit fromGeneral J.F.B. Marshall, the Treasurer of the Hampton Institute,who had had faith enough to lend us the first two hundred andfifty dollars with which to make a payment down on the farm. Heremained with us a week, and made a careful inspection ofeverything. He seemed well pleased with our progress, and wroteback interesting and encouraging reports to Hampton. A littlelater Miss Mary F. Mackie, the teacher who had given me the"sweeping" examination when I entered Hampton, came to see us,and still later General Armstrong himself came.At the time of the visits of these Hampton friends the number ofteachers at Tuskegee had increase considerably, and the most ofthe new teachers were graduates of the Hampton Institute. We gaveour Hampton friends, especially General Armstrong, a cordialwelcome. They were all surprised and pleased at the rapidprogress that the school had made within so short a time. Thecoloured people from miles around came to the school to get alook at General Armstrong, about whom they had heard so much. TheGeneral was not only welcomed by the members of my own race, butby the Southern white people as well.This first visit which General Armstrong made to Tuskegee gave mean opportunity to get an insight into his character such as I hadnot before had. I refer to his interest in the Southern whitepeople. Before this I had had the thought that General Armstrong,having fought the Southern white man, rather cherished a feelingof bitterness toward the white South, and was interested inhelping only the coloured man there. But this visit convinced methat I did not know the greatness and the generosity of the man.I soon learned, by his visits to the Southern white people, andfrom his conversations with them, that he was as anxious aboutthe prosperity and the happiness of the white race as the black.He cherished no bitterness against the South, and was happy whenan opportunity offered for manifesting his sympathy. In all myacquaintance with General Armstrong I never heard him speak, inpublic or in private, a single bitter word against the white manin the South. From his example in this respect I learned thelesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little mencherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given tothe weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppressionof the unfortunate makes one weak.It is now long ago that I learned this lesson from GeneralArmstrong, and resolved that I would permit no man, no matterwhat his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by makingme hate him. With God's help, I believe that I have completelyrid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man forany wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race. I am made tofeel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southernwhite men as when the service is rendered to a member of my ownrace. I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is sounfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.The more I consider the subject, the more strongly I am convincedthat the most harmful effect of the practice to which the peoplein certain sections of the South have felt themselves compelledto resort, in order to get rid of the force of the Negroes'ballot, is not wholly in the wrong done to the Negro, but in thepermanent injury to the morals of the white man. The wrong to theNegro is temporary, but to the morals of the white man the injuryis permanent. I have noted time and time again that when anindividual perjures himself in order to break the force of theblack man's ballot, he soon learns to practise dishonesty inother relations of life, not only where the Negro is concerned,but equally so where a white man is concerned. The white man whobegins by cheating a Negro usually ends by cheating a white man.The white man who begins to break the law by lynching a Negrosoon yields to the temptation to lynch a white man. All this, itseems to me, makes it important that the whole Nation lend a handin trying to lift the burden of ignorance from the South.Another thing that is becoming more apparent each year in thedevelopment of education in the South is the influence of GeneralArmstrong's idea of education; and this not upon the blacksalone, but upon the whites also. At the present time there isalmost no Southern state that is not putting forth efforts in thedirection of securing industrial education for its white boys andgirls, and in most cases it is easy to trace the history of theseefforts back to General Armstrong.Soon after the opening of our humble boarding department studentsbegan coming to us in still larger numbers. For weeks we not onlyhad to contend with the difficulty of providing board, with nomoney, but also with that of providing sleeping accommodations.For this purpose we rented a number of cabins near the school.These cabins were in a dilapidated condition, and during thewinter months the students who occupied them necessarily sufferedfrom the cold. We charge the students eight dollars a month--allthey were able to pay--for their board. This included, besidesboard, room, fuel, and washing. We also gave the students crediton their board bills for all the work which they did for theschool which was of any value to the institution. The cost oftuition, which was fifty dollars a year for each student, we hadto secure then, as now, wherever we could.This small charge in cash gave us no capital with which to starta boarding department. The weather during the second winter ofour work was very cold. We were not able to provide enoughbed-clothes to keep the students warm. In fact, for some time wewere not able to provide, except in a few cases, bedsteads andmattresses of any kind. During the coldest nights I was sotroubled about the discomfort of the students that I could notsleep myself. I recall that on several occasions I went in themiddle of the night to the shanties occupied by the young men,for the purpose of confronting them. Often I found some of themsitting huddled around a fire, with the one blanket which we hadbeen able to provide wrapped around them, trying in this way tokeep warm. During the whole night some of them did not attempt tolie down. One morning, when the night previous had been unusuallycold, I asked those of the students in the chapel who thoughtthat they had been frostbitten during the night to raise theirhands. Three hands went up. Notwithstanding these experiences,there was almost no complaining on the part of the students. Theyknew that we were doing the best that we could for them. Theywere happy in the privilege of being permitted to enjoy any kindof opportunity that would enable them to improve their condition.They were constantly asking what they might do to lighten theburdens of the teachers.I have heard it stated more than once, both in the North and inthe South, that coloured people would not obey and respect eachother when one member of the race is placed in a position ofauthority over others. In regard to this general belief and thesestatements, I can say that during the nineteen years of myexperience at Tuskegee I never, either by word or act, have beentreated with disrespect by any student or officer connected withthe institution. On the other hand, I am constantly embarrassedby the many acts of thoughtful kindness. The students do not seemto want to see me carry a large book or a satchel or any kind ofa burden through the grounds. In such cases more than one alwaysoffers to relieve me. I almost never go out of my office when therain is falling that some student does not come to my side withan umbrella and ask to be allowed to hold it over me.While writing upon this subject, it is a pleasure for me to addthat in all my contact with the white people of the South I havenever received a single personal insult. The white people in andnear Tuskegee, to an especial degree, seem to count it as aprivilege to show me all the respect within their power, andoften go out of their way to do this.Not very long ago I was making a journey between Dallas (Texas)and Houston. In some way it became known in advance that I was onthe train. At nearly every station at which the train stopped,numbers of white people, including in most cases of the officialsof the town, came aboard and introduced themselves and thanked meheartily for the work that I was trying to do for the South.On another occasion, when I was making a trip from Augusta,Georgia, to Atlanta, being rather tired from much travel, I roadin a Pullman sleeper. When I went into the car, I found there twoladies from Boston whom I knew well. These good ladies wereperfectly ignorant, it seems, of the customs of the South, and inthe goodness of their hearts insisted that I take a seat withthem in their section. After some hesitation I consented. I hadbeen there but a few minutes when one of them, without myknowledge, ordered supper to be served for the three of us. Thisembarrassed me still further. The car was full of Southern whitemen, most of whom had their eyes on our party. When I found thatsupper had been ordered, I tried to contrive some excuse thatwould permit me to leave the section, but the ladies insistedthat I must eat with them. I finally settled back in my seat witha sigh, and said to myself, "I am in for it now, sure."To add further to the embarrassment of the situation, soon afterthe supper was placed on the table one of the ladies rememberedthat she had in her satchel a special kind of tea which shewished served, and as she said she felt quite sure the porter didnot know how to brew it properly, she insisted upon getting upand preparing and serving it herself. At last the meal was over;and it seemed the longest one that I had ever eaten. When we werethrough, I decided to get myself out of the embarrassingsituation and go to the smoking-room, where most of the men wereby that time, to see how the land lay. In the meantime, however,it had become known in some way throughout the car who I was.When I went into the smoking-room I was never more surprised inmy life than when each man, nearly every one of them a citizen ofGeorgia, came up and introduced himself to me and thanked meearnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the wholeSouth. This was not flattery, because each one of theseindividuals knew that he had nothing to gain by trying to flatterme.From the first I have sought to impress the students with theidea that Tuskegee is not my institution, or that of theofficers, but that it is their institution, and that they have asmuch interest in it as any of the trustees or instructors. I havefurther sought to have them feel that I am at the institution astheir friend and adviser, and not as their overseer. It has beenmy aim to have them speak with directness and frankness aboutanything that concerns the life of the school. Two or three timesa year I ask the students to write me a letter criticising ormaking complaints or suggestions about anything connected withthe institution. When this is not done, I have them meet me inthe chapel for a heart-to-heart talk about the conduct of theschool. There are no meetings with our students that I enjoy morethan these, and none are more helpful to me in planning for thefuture. These meetings, it seems to me, enable me to get at thevery heart of all that concerns the school. Few things help anindividual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to lethim know that you trust him. When I have read of labour troublesbetween employers and employees, I have often thought that manystrikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if theemployers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to theiremployees, of consulting and advising with them, and letting themfeel that the interests of the two are the same. Every individualresponds to confidence, and this is not more true of any racethan of the Negroes. Let them once understand that you areunselfishly interested in them, and you can lead them to anyextent.It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee to not only have thebuildings erected by the students themselves, but to have themmake their own furniture as far as was possible. I now marvel atthe patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor whilewaiting for some kind of a bedstead to be constructed, or attheir sleeping without any kind of a mattress while waiting forsomething that looked like a mattress to be made.In the early days we had very few students who had been used tohandling carpenters' tools, and the bedsteads made by thestudents then were very rough and very weak. Not unfrequentlywhen I went into the students' rooms in the morning I would findat least two bedsteads lying about on the floor. The problem ofproviding mattresses was a difficult one to solve. We finallymastered this, however, by getting some cheap cloth and sewingpieces of this together as to make large bags. These bags wefilled with the pine straw--or, as it is sometimes called, pineneedles--which we secured from the forests near by. I am glad tosay that the industry of mattress-making has grown steadily sincethen, and has been improved to such an extent that at the presenttime it is an important branch of the work which is taughtsystematically to a number of our girls, and that the mattressesthat now come out of the mattress-shop at Tuskegee are about asgood as those bought in the average store. For some time afterthe opening of the boarding department we had no chairs in thestudents' bedrooms or in the dining rooms. Instead of chairs weused stools which the students constructed by nailing togetherthree pieces of rough board. As a rule, the furniture in thestudents' rooms during the early days of the school consisted ofa bed, some stools, and sometimes a rough table made by thestudents. The plan of having the students make the furniture isstill followed, but the number of pieces in a room has beenincreased, and the workmanship has so improved that little faultcan be found with the articles now. One thing that I have alwaysinsisted upon at Tuskegee is that everywhere there should beabsolute cleanliness. Over and over again the students werereminded in those first years--and are reminded now--that peoplewould excuse us for our poverty, for our lack of comforts andconveniences, but that they would not excuse us for dirt.Another thing that has been insisted upon at the school is theuse of the tooth-brush. "The gospel of the tooth-brush," asGeneral Armstrong used to call it, is part of our creed atTuskegee. No student is permitted to retain who does not keep anduse a tooth-brush. Several times, in recent years, students havecome to us who brought with them almost no other article except atooth-brush. They had heard from the lips of other students aboutour insisting upon the use of this, and so, to make a goodimpression, they brought at least a tooth-brush with them. Iremember that one morning, not long ago, I went with the ladyprincipal on her usual morning tour of inspection of the girls'rooms. We found one room that contained three girls who hadrecently arrived at the school. When I asked them if they hadtooth-brushes, one of the girls replied, pointing to a brush:"Yes, sir. That is our brush. We bought it together, yesterday."It did not take them long to learn a different lesson.It has been interesting to note the effect that the use of thetooth-brush has had in bringing about a higher degree ofcivilization among the students. With few exceptions, I havenoticed that, if we can get a student to the point where, whenthe first or second tooth-brush disappears, he of his own motionbuys another, I have not been disappointed in the future of thatindividual. Absolute cleanliness of the body has been insistedupon from the first. The students have been taught to bathe asregularly as to take their meals. This lesson we began teachingbefore we had anything in the shape of a bath-house. Most of thestudents came from plantation districts, and often we had toteach them how to sleep at night; that is, whether between thetwo sheets--after we got to the point where we could provide themtwo sheets--or under both of them. Naturally I found it difficultto teach them to sleep between two sheets when we were able tosupply but one. The importance of the use of the night-gownreceived the same attention.For a long time one of the most difficult tasks was to teach thestudents that all the buttons were to be kept on their clothes,and that there must be no torn places or grease-spots. Thislesson, I am pleased to be able to say, has been so thoroughlylearned and so faithfully handed down from year to year by oneset of students to another that often at the present time, whenthe students march out of the chapel in the evening and theirdress is inspected, as it is every night, not one button is foundto be missing.